A federal judge on Wednesday ordered convicted Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes to report to prison on May 30 to begin her 11-year sentence after she lost a last-minute appeal to overturn her conviction.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Holmes’ attempt to stay out of prison while she appeals her conviction comes nearly three weeks after she deployed the last-ditch legal maneuver.
In another ruling issued late Tuesday, US District Judge Edward Davila ordered Holmes to pay $452 million in restitution to the victims of her crimes, which included defrauding investors who bought into her claims of a revolutionary diagnostic tool using a finger prick.
Holmes is being held jointly liable for that amount with her former lover and top Theranos lieutenant Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who is already in prison after being convicted on a broader range of felonies in a separate trial.
Davila had been previously ordered Holmes to surrender to authorities on April 27 after she was sentenced last November.
Davila has recommended that Holmes serve her sentence at a federal women’s prison in Bryan, Texas.
It hasn’t been disclosed whether the federal Bureau of Prisons accepted Davila’s recommendation or assigned Holmes to another facility.
Balwani, 57, began a nearly 13-year prison sentence last month after being convicted on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy last July.
He was incarcerated in a Southern California prison after losing a similar effort to remain free on bail while appealing his conviction.
Theranos was the highly touted Silicon Valley tech startup that raised around $1.3 billion from several investors who were tricked into believing that its blood-testing technology that could diagnose illness through a finger prick was effective.
The publicity surrounding the claims of a breakthrough technology earned Holmes celebrity status that included favorable comparisons to tech trailblazers such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.
With Post Wires
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